Written By: Dr. Joseph Mercola
Originally published on www.mercola.com
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- Canada has enacted a new law called the Online News Act that forces social media companies to compensate domestic news organizations for content shared on their platforms. To comply with the new law, Meta banned all news -- both national and international news stories -- from appearing in Facebook and Instagram feeds in Canada as of June 1, 2023
- Google is also blocking all Canadian news from its search, news and discover products in Canada as of June 29, 2023
- According to a citizen journalist, X (formerly Twitter) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are working together to censor people on the platform. The ADL has also been influencing crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe to deplatform certain users
- The ADL is using artificial intelligence software to comb through podcasts and video-game streams for "extremist" keywords. This suggests ADL is surveilling the online activities of private citizens even if those activities have nothing to do with the ADL's political and social causes
- While Elon Musk has called himself a "free speech absolutist" and promised X would be a free speech platform, evidence suggests otherwise. X CEO Linda Yaccarino is the chairman of the World Economic Forum's Taskforce on Future of Work and sits on the WEF's Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee. She has stated that "lawful but awful" posts will be "deamplified," and that the company policy is one of "freedom of speech, not reach." X is also actively recruiting applicants for various censorship positions for the upcoming election in 2024
Censorship is ramping up at a rapid clip, and much of it is clearly directed by the U.S. federal government, despite a federal judge's order prohibiting federal agencies and officials from communicating with social media companies about content moderation.1
In recent days, several news stories have highlighted governments' and Big Tech's intent to increase censorship. There's even a rumor that Google will ban independent media from its search results altogether.2 I've not been able to confirm this, but considering everything else going on, would anyone really be surprised if it were true?
Google, Meta Ban News in Canada
For example, Canada has enacted a new law called the Online News Act that forces social media companies to compensate domestic news organizations for content shared on their platforms. While that may not sound like censorship, it has the same effect, as social media companies are now automatically removing all news links.3
To comply with the new law, Meta banned all news -- both national and international news stories -- from appearing in Facebook and Instagram feeds in Canada as of June 1, 2023.4
Google is also blocking all Canadian news from its search, news and discover products in Canada as of June 29, 2023.5 In other words, if you live in Canada, you cannot get any news whatsoever unless you subscribe or go to the news source in question directly.
X/Twitter Colludes With Anti-Defamation League to Censor
In other news, X (formerly Twitter) and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are working together to censor X users, according to citizen journalist Kyle Clifton (his X account is Kyle Undercover).6
In a series of five videos7 (which you can view here), ADL director of development Courtney Kravitz and the ADL community manager for Arizona, Sarah Kader, discuss a variety of tactics the ADL is using to suppress and censor online speech.
In video No. 1, Kravitz explains that outright bans are not ideal, as it forces people to seek out alternative platforms. Hence a "balance" must be struck between preventing them from "run[ning] to this dark place where they are just with like-minded people" and preventing them from "spewing hate and disinformation."
It appears the ADL prefers tactics like shadow-banning instead, where the reach of an account or post is severely limited. "Everyone should have freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach," Kravitz tells Kyle. Interestingly enough, Musk himself used that same line in the summer of 2022.8
In video No. 2, Kravitz admits the ADL has urged Elon Musk to not reverse the ban on certain users, and in video No. 3, Kader explains how the ADL is using novel artificial intelligence software to comb through podcasts and video-game streams for "extremist" keywords.
As noted by Life Site News,9 the admission that ADL is scouring the audio streams of online gamers "suggests ADL has ... interest in combing through the online activities of private citizens not involved in political and social causes ..." Is that really something the ADL should be doing?
In video No. 4, Kravitz admits the ADL has also been influencing crowdfunding platforms like GoFundMe to deplatform certain users, telling them that "extremists" are using their payment processing services to "fund their evil stuff."
And, in video No. 5, Kader explains how the Arizona ADL has set up a Law Enforcement Advisory Council to identify and address online "hate." The Advisory Council is made up of "local police departments and other law enforcement agencies all around the state." Some key questions here, of course, are: What is hateful speech, and who decides what words are considered hateful?
In recent years, we've seen how this "anti-hate" narrative has been used to justify the removal of people providing truthful information about COVID and the COVID jabs, for example. Somehow, medical information was deemed "hateful."
X Censorship Squad Are Anything but Free-Speech Minded
While Musk has called himself a "free speech absolutist" and promised X would be a free speech platform, the people he's hired are not freedom-loving free speech advocates. Quite the contrary.
X CEO Linda Yaccarino is the chairman of the World Economic Forum's Taskforce on Future of Work. She's also part of the WEF's Media, Entertainment and Culture Industry Governors Steering Committee.
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Yaccarino has publicly asserted that she has autonomy from Musk.10 A more important question is, does she have autonomy from the WEF, or is she using X to further the WEF's agenda?
Either way, Yaccarino has stated that "lawful but awful" posts will be "deamplified," read, shadow banned and demonetized.11 And, like Musk, she has stressed that the company policy is one of "freedom of speech, not reach" to protect "brand safety" for advertisers. And, indeed, under Yaccarino's watch, big advertisers are once again returning to the platform.
X Is Gearing Up for Election Censorship
X is also actively recruiting applicants for various censorship positions,12 including an "Elections Team Lead," which flies in the face of Musk's statement that "Free speech is essential for a functioning democracy."13
X censorship recruiter Aaron Rodericks is also working against Musk's stated vision by promoting Kate Starbird,14 a former Twitter employee and chief architect of the 2020 election censorship campaign in which 100% of the top "repeat misinformation spreaders" were Conservatives.15
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As noted in Michael Shellenberger's testimony before the House Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government in March 2023:16
"Kate Starbird, who runs the University of Washington disinformation lab, has for years been funded primarily by U.S. government agencies to do social media narrative analytics of political groups, or insurgency movements, of interest or concern to U.S. military intelligence or diplomatic equities.
Starbird acknowledged that the censorship focus of CISA and EIP [Election Integrity Partnership] moved from 'foreign, inauthentic' social media users to 'domestic, authentic' social media users between 2016 to 2020."
Starbird is also one of the 23 members of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency's (CISA) Cybersecurity Advisory Committee, launched in December 1, 2021.17
European Union Tightens Censorship Nose
In related news, X has also rolled out a new feature that allows users to report posts that violate the European Union's new law (the Digital Services Act or DSA) against expression of political dissent, pro-Russian propaganda and other "fake news."18 The new EU law took effect August 25, 2023.19
Other online platforms required to meet DSA requirements for content moderation or risk heavy fines include Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Snapchat, Amazon, Booking, AliExpress, Google Shopping, Zalando, Apple, Google's app stores, Google Maps, Wikipedia, Google Search and Bing.20 As reported by Politico:21
"These large platforms will have to stop displaying ads to users based on sensitive data like religion and political opinions. AI-generated content like manipulated videos and photos, known as deepfakes, will have to be labeled.
Companies will also have to conduct yearly assessments of the risks their platforms pose on a range of issues like public health, kids' safety and freedom of expression. They will be required to lay out their measures for how they are tackling such risks.
'These 19 very large online platforms and search engines will have to redesign completely their systems to ensure a high level of privacy, security and safety of minors with age verification and parental control tools,' said [EU's Internal Market Commissioner Thierry] Breton.
External firms will audit their plans. The enforcement team in the Commission will access their data and algorithms to check whether they are promoting a range of harmful content -- for example, content endangering public health or during elections. Fines can go up to 6 percent of their global annual turnover and very serious cases of infringement could result in platforms facing temporary bans."
The key words there are "content endangering public health" and "elections." That tells you the EU will force all of these platforms to censor medical information and election information.
X Implementing New Identification Rules
X is also pushing us deeper into surveillance state tyranny by requiring XBlue subscribers to submit a selfie and a government-issued ID to verify their identity.22 X will store this personal information for 30 days and share it with an Israeli identification verification company called AU10TIX.
For now, non-blue users are not required to verify their identities, but I suspect it's only a matter of time. Eventually, you'll have to have a digital identity to use the internet at all, and every move you make online will be tracked as part of your social credit score. X is simply paving the way.
CCDH Feigns Innocence
In 2021, it became apparent that the U.S. government was basing many of its censorship decisions on information from an obscure U.K.-based group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). Its "Disinformation Dozen" report,23 published March 24, 2021, has without question been one of the most widely cited "justifications" for censorship over these past two years.
The problem is that this report was itself an example of gross misinformation. The CCDH claimed 12 individuals were responsible for 73% of vaccine misinformation on social media, including Facebook, yet an investigation by Facebook revealed the so-called "disinformation dozen" were responsible for just 0.05% of all views of vaccine-related content on the platform.24
Yet, even after Facebook set the record straight, the federal government continued to cite the CCDH report as the reason for why they wanted the people listed in it censored by Big Tech.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren demanded that Amazon ban my book, "The Truth About COVID," based on the CCDH's false statements about me, and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) even relied on it to identify "domestic threat actors,"25 meaning domestic terrorists.
Put simply, the DHS has tagged me as a domestic terrorist based on the fabrications of a shadowy intelligence-connected group that in a rational society would have no credibility whatsoever.
This is the intelligence community's version of Nancy Pelosi's "wrap-up smear" tactic,26 which is when a politician feeds false information to the media and then uses those media reports to support their false claims.
August 3, 2023, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, launched an investigation into the CCDH's potential role in the Biden administration's censorship regime.
The group was ordered to hand over records to the Judiciary Committee detailing its interactions with the U.S. government and the executive branch by August 17.27 As reported by The Washington Post that day:28
"On Thursday [August 17], the CCDH responded with a full-throated defense of its research and communications with government officials, dismissing Jordan's allegations as 'confusion about the organization' in a letter.
Related documents, which were exclusively viewed by The Washington Post, show that the organization has worked with government officials from both parties ...
Jordan also has released internal communications from Meta, which he has dubbed 'the Facebook Files,' citing the CCDH's research. The emails ... show that the White House discussed the CCDH's coronavirus research with Facebook executives as it pressured the company to take a tougher line against vaccine falsehoods.
Nadgey Louis-Charles, a House Judiciary spokesperson, recently told The Post that these emails expose the 'extent to which the Biden White House used the work of the CCDH to try to censor speech.'"
Free Speech Without Reach Is Not Freedom
The CCDH's fabrications have been used by a long list of government actors and representatives, including members of Congress, state attorneys general and even President Biden himself, all of whom publicly called for retaliatory actions to be taken against us.
As a result, we've been censored on social media, delisted by Google Search, and demonetized on YouTube. We've been deplatformed and cut off from online payment processors, our websites have been cyberattacked and, in several cases, taken down completely -- and we've been debanked, all for the "crime" of sharing Constitutionally-protected views and published science.
At the end of the day, the so-called "problem" of misinformation and disinformation is pure nonsense. In a free society, people debate issues and bring varying viewpoints to the table. "Misinformation" is a completely fabricated problem, made up by the very people who seek to control the public discourse for their own aims.
The technocratic cabal driving this global censorship movement know they must silence dissenting viewpoints because what they intend to impose on us is so heinous, if people understand what they're doing, they'll never be able to achieve their goals.
So, it's not just "democracy" that hangs in the balance. Basic freedoms, human rights and life as we know it will be taken from us, and the only way to stop it is by waking people up to reality through information sharing. The very survival of humanity now depends on our ability to maintain free speech, which is why we must keep pushing back against all forms of censorship.
References
2 Dainikbidyaloy.com August 14, 2023
4 Meta Press Release June 1, 2023
6, 9 Life Site News August 11, 2023
8 Life Site News June 17, 2022
10, 11 New York Post August 10, 2023
12, 13 BizPacNews August 21, 2023
15 Twitter Mike Benz August 16, 2023
17 CISA Press Release December 1, 2021
18 Twitter Afshiin Rattansi August 20, 2023
20, 21 Politico April 25, 2023
22 Social Media Today August 3, 2023
23 Counterhate.com The Disinformation Dozen March 24, 2021
25 Combatting Targeted Disinformation Campaigns, Part 2 August 2021
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